What should you consider when choosing your watercolor material?

Getting started in watercolor can be overwhelming. From drawing to brushes, discover the essential tools and favorites to successfully explore the technique.

Is there a difference between school and professional watercolors? Which brand is better? How to know which paper to choose? Cold press or Hot Press? Does the brush matter?

One of the first obstacles you face when learning watercolor is learning with the wrong materials. There are so many options on the market that it is overwhelming, but don't worry, you don't need to have the biggest or most expensive set to enjoy this technique, just a couple of professional tubes, a good paper and one or two brushes. In the list I will show you below are my favorite tools that I used in my course to learn environmental watercolor techniques.

To make watercolor there are three basic tools: paper, pigments and brushes. In my case I would add a fourth one: pencils or pens, because I like to work with lines.

Drawing

Let's start with the basics; drawing. I always work with a base line, either a pencil sketch or with waterproof inks, for this I use Mitsubishi pencils (2) because they give very consistent lines and are economical. When drawing with ink I use markers, the "Pigma Micron" model from Sakura (3) is my favorite because it has pigment-based ink and is waterproof, plus they come in different thicknesses and are super easy to get.
To erase, either use a Factis or Japanese brand Tombow eraser (4), because they are soft and do not damage the paper.

Watercolors

As for watercolors, there is a huge variety of brands and types, I would not dare to say which brands are better, they all have advantages and disadvantages, it will depend more on what you can get where you live. I would only recommend that you go for professional grade ones, they are more expensive, but worth the investment. You are better off getting three or four good quality tubes rather than buying a large set of school watercolors. The set I use (1) brings together tablets of various brands, which are actually small containers that I filled with tubes that I have been buying and put them in a little box that I asked my father to make me out of wood. Most of them are Holbein watercolors, a couple of Winsor and Newton (10) and one or two Schmincke.

Paper

The paper is a separate issue and I would say it is just as important as the watercolors, working on a good paper will make the difference when you experiment the technique for the first time because it will give you the freedom to make good transitions and move freely the washes, also from this will depend many times how uniform your results will be. There are different brands, thicknesses and classifications, in my Domestika course I go deeper into this topic. Some of the papers I recommend are the Guarro (8) fine grain and rough because it is an economical paper and has a good amount of cotton (50%) and also the Fabriano Unica paper (9) that despite being a paper for artistic reproductions or engraving, also has 50% cotton and works well for pieces with few layers of watercolor and to work the technique on dry paper.

Brushes

Another fundamental tool is the brush and there are also infinite alternatives depending on the type of hair; there are natural or synthetic and of different shapes: flat, round, angular. Each one for a specific purpose. For me, the most versatile and for this reason, my favorites are the round ones.

Here are my top three brushes:

1. Raphael Kaerell #6-8 (11) - It's a round synthetic brush but it holds a lot of water, without a doubt it's the one I use the most.
2. Escoda Versatil #6 (12) - Round synthetic brush, very useful for painting small details on scenery, such as lettering or logos.
3. Rodin Serie S-9700 #5 (13) - Round synthetic brush, it retains less water than the previous ones and is much simpler, but it is very versatile and I like to use it to paint in my sketchbook.

Bonus

There is another group of less prominent tools that I also recommend you to consider; palettes and water containers.

For thes, you don't need to make a big investment and you can even improvise a bit. For example, as a trowel I got a couple of ceramic saucers (6) at the supermarket. I like to use white ceramic because it is easy to clean and serves well for mixing the pigments. As for the container I do work with something more special, it is a ceramic tank (7) with two divisions, I like it because it is heavy and I avoid the risk of throwing it on my work by accident, but you can use any jar or even a glass, yes, I recommend that you have two, one where you can rinse or remove excess pigment from the brush and another with cleaner water to load the brush and avoid contaminating your tablets too much.

To finish

As you can see, it is important to pay attention to the quality of materials you will use to learn, this will not determine the quality of your work, but it will help your learning and experimentation process to flow better, it will avoid frustration and some headaches. I also think there is some magic in going to the store and choosing your materials, I invite you to explore my course and make the most of your new tools.

Thanks for reading me and of course, I look forward to seeing you in my Watercolor Painting: Colorize Scenery and Vivid Environments course on Domestika!